


On Your Final Journey to the Ground

by mywritingiswack



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Gen, Monty ships Bellarke, anyways lots of pain, what a surprise
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-19
Updated: 2019-05-19
Packaged: 2020-03-07 22:40:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18882694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mywritingiswack/pseuds/mywritingiswack
Summary: Monty says what he needs to say to the people he cares about before he floats himself.(I would put this more eloquently but I'm bad at summaries.)





	On Your Final Journey to the Ground

Monty stopped recording, his hands shaking as flickers of Harper’s last few days flipped through his mind. As her face, cold and lifeless, etched itself into his memory. Monty knew...Monty knew what she said to him. And he knew he could live without her. But there were so many problems with that notion.

For one, every day he would be tempted to take Jordan or Murphy or  _someone_ out of cryo so he didn’t have to spend his last days alone. And Monty couldn’t do that to any of them. They all deserved to have a life, a good peaceful life with their family, and Monty couldn’t give that to them.

Secondly, it was only now that he understood what true loneliness. The only real family he had known in his life - his parents, Jasper, Harper, and Jordan - they were all gone, in one way or another. And he was left here. And maybe he understood a little of what Clarke felt in those six years and seven days she was alone with no one but her child. He hadn’t even spent a day alone, and his heart already ached for Harper’s steadying effect, Jordan’s innocence and contagious joy. Human contact.

He had already made videos saying goodbye to everyone with Harper when they knew she only had a few days to live, but Monty couldn’t remember exactly what they said in the videos. As much as he tried, he couldn’t bring himself to watch the videos, not sure what hearing her voice would do his own heartache and grief. Either way, his life would be ending soon. He didn’t want to spend his last two hours crying over Harper when he would cease to exist soon. What good was dealing with pain when soon there would be no one to feel it?

Monty shook his head and picked up Harper’s old journal, where the list of people they made videos for was still written down, all the names crossed off.

He made his way down to the bottom of the list. _Octavia_ was sprawled across the pages in Harper’s script that had become messier as the years took away her steady hands.

Sighing, he stood, his bones protesting at the movement, and went to the cryo hall, his eyes ritualistically reading the numbers etched where no one could see unless they were looking closely.

He pulled one of the old chairs that were lined up and down the hall incrementally and put it in front of Octavia’s cryo chamber, before realizing there was really only one thing Monty needed to say to her.

“You know, uh, Clarke muttered something once that I don’t think I was supposed to hear. ‘Forgiveness isn’t about what people deserve.’ And you don’t. Deserve my forgiveness, that is. But I don’t...I don’t know when it happened, but somewhere along nearly sixty years of life, I forgave you. Not for what you did to Bellamy, but what you did to _me_. And I know it’s probably selfish, but there was a part of me - a part of me didn’t care about whether I was helping humanity. A part of me just thought, this is it. This is the place I can be happy, the place where Harper and I can...can _thrive_ in a way I had never been allowed to. And I forgive you for taking that away from me. Just...yeah,” Monty whispered. He knew there was a small chance that the people in cryo could hear what was going on subconsciously, and Monty hoped that whatever he said to everyone, they would hear.

A bigger part of him was still saddened by the prospect that they couldn’t respond, although, in Octavia’s case, he guessed it was for the better. Monty was sure her reaction wouldn’t be particularly kind.

He sighed, unclenching his hands from the back of the chair and looking down at the list again, following the unwritten directions in Harper’s handwriting. His eyes landed on the muffled image of Echo, and he couldn’t help but smile at the peace on her face.  
“Hey, Echo. I just...I thought you should know that I’m not gonna be around for much longer. All I wanted to say was...I’m sorry I could never consider you family in the way you considered me. I hope one day you’ll find that with people who can always reciprocate.” His words were short and sweet, yet still, a tear slid down his face and he quickly wiped it away, as if there was someone else to see him cry.

Monty refused to let his eyes stray to the side, to look at all of the people whose faces he had nearly memorized, most of whom he didn’t even know. Their faces only reminded him of all the stories he would tell Jordan about the people in cryo, without ever really knowing if they were true, just to keep Jordan entertained and the true stories spread out throughout the years.

 _Miller, Miller, Miller,_ his mind muttered as it tried to formulate what he was going to say to him.

This was most likely going to be a long one, so he pulled another chair over and settled in, the first thought his mind landed on flying out of his mouth.

“I never got to say sorry. About your dad. I...It was just so much. Two weeks, y’know. Everything happened. _Everything_. It was an actual mess. For a little bit, I believed what Jasper said. And I was so focused on the fact that for six years and seven days I ignored my own trauma because _if I broke down, then everyone would die_ that when we got to Earth it felt like everything came crashing down around me and -” Monty caught himself spiraling, his mom’s voice cutting through the noise followed by Harper’s.

 _Not everything is your fault, Monty. Don’t rehash and rehash the past after you’ve already dealt with it. Live in the future._ So Monty took a breath and did the next best thing as his future was limited to a few hours. Lived in the present.

“Anyways, I’m sorry about your dad and that I never got the chance to tell you earlier. There’s some...I don’t know how to say this without sounding insensitive and -” Monty was set into a fit of coughs for the first time after a few months. “- and so I’m just gonna say it. I don’t know who you are anymore. You weren’t...Your dad wouldn’t be proud of you.” Monty swallowed away the shakiness in his voice.

“I barely know what happened in the bunker, only bits and pieces I picked up, a lot of which I’ve forgotten. My memories not too great. I’m old, it’s not unexpected. Older than your dad now. He would’ve been too young to have memory problems yet, I think.”

He caught himself veering off-topic and laughed a little, a hollow, empty laugh that didn’t ring and bounce off the walls as Jordan’s did. Jordan had gotten his laugh from his mother. Once again, a pang of pain flooded his body and he was sure he would start uncontrollably sobbing.

“But um, anyways. From what I heard and what I can guess, it was...bad, really bad. And I know you helped it happen. I know how much losing a parent can hurt, but I guess I just...I just hope you’ll be able to find a way to move on.” Monty choked out the last few words, knowing that he was the one who wasn’t able to move on. Or maybe the one who didn’t want to. But people should learn from his failings as much as he did from theirs.

Monty didn’t get up for a few minutes, scared to reach out and touch the cold borosilicate glass. Eventually, his fingers curled into a fist after hovering near the glass for what seemed like twenty years. He had no doubt that all these one-sided conversations would age him an undetermined amount.

The years had been slowly catching up to him, and the fact was clear as he nearly collapsed back into the chair halfway up. Monty still managed to get up and he walked down the hall, noting the familiar faces. He paused when he came to Kane’s cryo pod, next to Abby’s, but continued after a few moments. It had been agonizing knowing that Kane was going to continue his slow crawl to death once he was out of cryo, but there was nothing Monty could do about it. He smiled a little at Diyoza’s pod, if only for a moment before coming to Emori’s pod.

Monty took a deep breath and considering bringing a chair over from one of the other pods before deciding against it.

“Hey, Em. I’m not even sure what to say to you. I don’t think I have any advice to give you, grievances to air, or anything to apologize for. Or at least I don’t remember anything that I would need to say. You’re...um...you’re amazing. And I know Raven can be intimidating, with all her confidence, but just know that you’re never gonna be lesser to her. You guys are equally amazing, just in different ways. Don’t let anyone, including yourself, convince you otherwise. And don’t feel bad about whatever is going on with you and Murphy. Whether or not you figure it out, it’ll all work out. It’s hard to believe sometimes...but it will.”

Monty paused for a second, nodding to himself and muttering, “Yes. Yeah. That’s it,” under his breath as he shuffled over to Raven’s pod, right next to Emori’s.

Just seeing her face, completely at peace, not knowing that she would wake up to find Harper and him had sacrificed themselves filled the cracks in his faltering heart with guilt, cracking it open further and further, to the brink of breaking.

It took Monty a few minutes to start speaking, every time he opened his mouth to begin bringing more tears to his eyes. “I know this is probably gonna hurt you the most, waking up and figuring out that if you had been awake then it wouldn’t have taken me thirty years to crack the files. But...I just need you to know, that I couldn’t wake you up. It wouldn’t have been fair to you. Because I had Harper and we had such an amazing life. It was so -” Monty’s voice broke and he had to wipe away a tear with a shaking hand. “It was so _amazing_ , Raven. They say you only remember the bad things, and I remember all of them, I do. But you also remember the good things. I remember all of Jordan’s firsts, I remember all the good days with Harper. And it wouldn’t have been fair to you to take you away from whatever you have with Shaw, to not give you a chance to fix things with Clarke, to not give you a chance to have the life you want, even if it hurts to admit that you want it...And Raven? Don’t hold those grudges for too long. They’ll eat you up inside.”

Pouring his heart out was still awkward for Monty, so he simply patted Raven’s pod, wishing he could hug her.

Once again, he only had to move a few pods down. "Oh, Murphy. What can I say to you? There really isn't much. Maybe...don't focus so much on everything besides yourself. And I'm sorry. For...I don't quite remember what I called you, but I remember it was unfair. So I'm sorry. I feel bad for not saying more, but I can't think of anything else to say. I - May we meet again."

With a quick glance at Murphy, he shuffled over to Clarke and Bellamy’s pods, sighing as he looked at both of them. “It feels best talking to you both at once, I think. Where do I even start with the land mine that is the both of you? Bellamy, just...talk to Clarke. Stop being so...closed off. That goes for you, too, Clarke. Although I suppose it’s hard for both of you. But try, at least. Stop thinking about everything as them versus us. It was never you two against the world. It was the world against all of us with you two leading the charge. Air all your grievances out, and fall back together and stay there.”

Monty started to walk away before he stopped, muttering, “And I’m sorry, Clarke. For...for everything you went through. For everything you  _are_ going to go through. For whatever part I may have played in that. I’ll miss you. I wish we could have spent more time together. And Bellamy…” Monty felt tears begin to well up once again. “I just...I’ll see you back on Earth. Hopefully not for years and years to come. But I’ll see you then.”

He finally got to Jordan’s pod, and then there was no way he could hold in his tears. Monty had to lean on the pod to steady himself as sobs racked his entire body. For a terrifyingly long moment, Monty wanted desperately to open Jordan’s pod.

The moment, however, passed, along with the majority of Monty’s tears, letting him speak.

“I love you. Don’t ever forget that. You are everything, Jordan. You...you were our Earth, JJ. Your mom and I loved you more than anything. And it’ll hurt, for a while, that’s okay. You just need to get through it and then thrive...Not everyone’s gonna warm up to you too quickly. So don’t hold it against them if it’s hard for them to get to know you. They’ll be hurting, too. You have to find your own family, anyway. And you will, I promise. It’s gonna be messy and awkward but you know about messy and awkward better than almost anyone else. I don’t...I don’t know what else to say to you. I could sit here and tell you how much we loved you but there are no words. With any luck, Harper and I made sure you know. And you’ll understand when you have kids of your own. Make sure you tell them about their grandparents, okay? Only the fun parts.”

He had been avoiding looking at Jordan’s face, but he glanced down at him. There were really no tears left, but the overwhelming urge to cry filled his every sense, and he knew that there was no option other than walking away. He hated it.

So Monty closed his eyes, took a breath, and stepped backwards, turning around and walking away as fast as his body and heart could manage. Which wasn’t very fast.

Fortunately, the airlock wasn’t too far away and there was nothing else for Monty to do, considering everything was set up for his...departure.

He pressed a few buttons, remembering the first time he and Harper had contemplated this. Death was still hard for Monty to accept, back then. Even with so many people gone, his mind didn’t really wrap around the permanence of death. Not until they put Jordan in cryo, at least. It was a sort of death that Monty and Harper faced together, knowing that they couldn’t see him again.

So Monty chose to find peace in that. He would join Harper soon, and once again they would face death together.

He walked into the airlock, which he had already rigged to close and let him out in sixty seconds. It felt like quite a while that he was standing there, willing himself not to slip out of the airlock and avoid his fate. So when the door closed, Monty took one last breath, and then the airlock opened, sending him out into the mass expanse of space.

“Hey, Monty.” “Hey, Green.”

“Hey, Harp. Hey, Jas,” Monty replied to the two voices who had greeted him.


End file.
